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Innovative new controller lets you ragequit by pouring literal salt

Sea of leaves

If only there was an easier way to stop playing your favourite games. The infuriating multiplayer ones, I mean - mid-session while you're at the peak of being piqued. I'm guilty of a ragequit or three, and I'm thrilled at the prospect of future anger absconsions being facilitated by the literal manifestation of my salt. The dream is real thanks to Eric Heckman, a YouTuber and builder of novelty controllers. Leaving Overwatch and League Of Legends mid-game will never be the same again.

I built a controller that allows you to literally pour salt to ragequit a match. (More in comments) from r/Overwatch

I've just described this as a novelty controller, but that's doing it a disservice. It's more like performance art. Social commentary through jury-rigged nonsense, literal electric resistance powering people's objections to a game not going their way. Well done, Mr Internet Man.

This isn't Heckman's first home-brewed mechanical rodeo. You can see more ohm-foolery over on his YouTube channel, "Insert Controller Here", including a longer version of the video above. Look, here he is building the cup. And here's him playing Guitar Hero with mayonnaise. And Super Meat Boy with... well, take a wild guess.

While we're here, did you know all of our brains are broken and you can never trust that your judgement of anything ever hasn't been compromised by bullshit metaphors? Science tells us you're more likely to judge someone as having a cold personality if you're holding a chilled can of Coke, while hot-chocolate encourages emotional warmth. If it's a bit nippy, you're more likely to ascribe premeditated acts to criminals. Relatedly, if even more tangentially, being in the same room as a fart spray makes people judge other people's moral transgressions more harshly.

I'm fascinated by the possibility that tasting literal salt might impact some people's judgement of metaphorical saltiness. Get to it, science bods.

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